Mark Vonesch's First Year In Office: Things Accomplished and In Progress

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - Mark Vonesch is very passionate about Cortes Island and his activities as Regional Director. If this were a video, rather than a radio broadcast, you would see it in his facial expressions. There is a hint of this passion in the words he chose and the tone of his voice. 

Cortes Currents asked him for a recap of this past year and what to expect going forward into 2024.  

"It's been a big year. It's been my first year in office and obviously a lot of learning. I  managed to get quite a few things done. One of the things with the government is that they usually don't move as fast  as people would like, certainly not as fast as I would like, so lots of things are in progress as well," he replied.

"I've been really proud to represent this community."

"There's a lot of people in Cortes that make this island work and I'm a small part of it. Everything from: the healthcare providers; the fire department; educators; people leading and working and volunteering and nonprofits;  all the different businesses that employ people and provide economic activity on Cortes, waste management collection and the waste management center."

"Being the Regional Director for Cortes, I was assigned to the Comox Strathcona regional Hospital Board, the Comox Strathcona Waste Management Board, the First Nations Relations Committee, the School District 72 Liaison Committee, Electoral Area Services Committee, which is a committee of all the rural electoral areas and of course the Strathcona Regional District Board. So sitting  on five committees and boards, and each of those committees has  a slightly different mandate,  focus and powers."

"Some people think that being the regional director of Cortes, I get to decide what happens on Cortes.  That's a misconception because the reality is I'm one of 14 people on the Strathcona Regional District Board. So if there's something that we want to see happen on Cortes, my job is to convince at least seven other people, so there's eight of us voting in favor of moving that forward. No matter how good the idea is, if I can't convince eight of us  to vote for it, then it doesn't happen.  I think that's one of the biggest learnings and realizations. My job isn't just to come up with good ideas, listen to the community and try to move things forward."

"It's really about bringing things to the board in a way that gets them passed, having those conversations with fellow directors, aligning myself  with fellow directors and working as a team because my job is to represent Cortes, is also to represent the Strathcona Regional District as a whole and make  good decisions for the Strathcona Regional District."